His greatest (and deserved) claim to fame, faithful, ever present private secretary to Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli (later Pope John XXIII) from 1958 to the pope’s death in 1963 (and he was at the bedside).

Here seen walking behind the pope, in 1958, at the Vatican, early into the papacy. His appointment as secretary was one of the new pope’s first acts.

Cardinal Capovilla has a commanding lead as the oldest living cardinal as clearly illustrated in my new Excel spreadsheet for the College. Click to ENLARGE.

As far as we know, based on current documentation, the OLDEST cardinal was Portuguese Dom Jorge da Costa [1406 to Sept. 18, 1508]. He is said to have been 102 when he died though this exact birthdate is not known! He, once the Archbishop of Lisbon (and then of Braga), was created in 1476 — when he would have been 70.

We have had a cardinal who lived to be 101 in recent times. He was Italian, Corrado Bafile (4 July 1903 – 3 February 2005). Unlike with da Costa we know his exact birthdate.

So he was 101 years, 6 months and 4 weeks old when he died. So Cardinal Capovilla needs to live for another 1.5 years to catch up with him.

The average duration between deaths have been 23.5 days. The typical average for this is 44.6 days. The 4 deaths in April was atypical. That 44% belonged to a religious order is also slightly out of the norm.

10 cardinals died in both 2014 & 2013, while the number was 9 for both 2012 & 2011. It was 6 in 2010. So the 2015 number is close to to ‘high water mark’.

Keeping track of cardinal deaths is in no way morbid. It is something one has to do IF one is to keep tabs on the College of Cardinals. Only three things alter the fundamental parameters of the College: creations, 80-year aging outs and deaths.

I used to maintain this type of chart — until I stopped doing so once Pope Francis was elected in 2013. Click to ENLARGE. I plan to go back to doing this.

In 2011 I did a fair amount of research and analysis into cardinal deaths. Here are some examples. Go to “Popes and Papacy” and do a search on “cardinal deaths” for more. Here are some of the charts from those posts. Click to ENLARGE. My goal is to resurrect and update these charts. The good news is that I have the Excel spreadsheet.

The distribution of the birthdays of the cardinals, by and large, is arbitrary — though there have (and will be) a few instances where a prelate was created, when he was, because his birthdate ‘fitted in’ relative to the ’80-year’ cutoff. We just had two cardinals, Abril y Castelló & De Paolis, turn 80 within the space of two days. But prior to that the last cardinal to age out was 5 months earlier.

And we are going to see that again. The next cardinal to age out will be US Cardinal Roger Michael Mahony, on February 27, 2016. So that is the next scheduled change to the College — barring deaths.